Apple Speeds Up Electric-Car WorkConsumer-Electronics Maker Aims to Finalize First Vehicle in 2019

Apple Inc. is accelerating efforts to build an electric car, designating it internally as a “committed project” and setting a target ship date for 2019, according to people familiar with the matter.

The go-ahead came after the company spent more than a year investigating the feasibility of an Apple-branded car, including meetings with two groups of government officials in California. Leaders of the project, code-named Titan , have been given permission to triple the 600-person team, the people familiar with the matter said.

Apple has hired experts in driverless cars, but the people familiar with Apple’s plans said the Cupertino, Calif., company doesn’t currently plan to make its first electric vehicle fully autonomous. That capability is part of the product’s long-term plans, the people familiar with the matter said.

Apple’s commitment is a sign that the company sees an opportunity to become a player in the automotive industry by applying expertise that it has honed in developing iPhones—in areas such as batteries, sensors and hardware-software integration—to the next generation of cars.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

There are many unanswered questions about Apple’s automotive foray. It isn’t clear whether Apple has a manufacturing partner to become the car equivalent of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the Taiwanese contract manufacturer that builds most iPhones and is known by the trade name Foxconn. Most major auto makers build and run their own factories, but that hasn’t been Apple’s strategy with iPhones or iPads. Contract manufacturing in the auto industry usually is limited to a few niche models.

The 2019 target is ambitious. Building a car is a complex endeavor, even more so for a company without any experience. Once Apple completes its designs and prototypes, a vehicle would still need to undergo a litany of tests before it could clear regulatory hurdles.

In Apple’s parlance, a “ship date” doesn’t necessarily mean the date that customers receive a new product; it can also mean the date that engineers sign off on the product’s main features.

It isn’t uncommon for a project of this size and complexity to miss ship-date deadlines. People familiar with the project said there is skepticism within the team that the 2019 target is achievable.

The global market for electric cars has been weak because of low gas prices and concerns about vehicle price and battery range. To date, Tesla Motors Inc. and Nissan Motor Co. sell two of the best-known and highest-volume battery-powered vehicles, but volumes are only a sliver of the industry’s 85 million annual vehicle sales.

Emissions standards are tightening around the world, however, leading most major car companies to invest billions of dollars in plans to launch electric cars between now and the end of the decade. By the time an Apple car would make its debut, brands spanning General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet to Volkswagen AG’s Audi and Porsche will have long-range electric vehicles aimed at the mass market.

Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple had several hundred people investigating an electric vehicle with an initial design resembling a minivan.

Apple has ramped up hiring since then, pulling in veterans from the auto industry as well as battery and machine-vision experts. People inside Apple said employees from across the company have been reassigned to Titan, similar to how Apple assembled a team for the Apple Watch.

Those involved include DJ Novotney, an Apple veteran with a history of successfully shipping products. Mr. Novotney, one of the first hires to the program last year, is a vice president of program management, overseeing a growing team of managers who coordinate activities among various teams. He didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Asked last week by late-night talk-show host Stephen Colbert about Apple’s interest in a driverless car, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said: “We look at a number of things along the way, and we decide to really put our energies in a few of them.”

Gene Munster, an equity analyst with Piper Jaffray, in a Sept. 1 research note estimated Apple’s chances of making a car at between 50% and 60%. He said he expects any Apple car to have three distinctive features: a unique design; the ability to work with other Apple devices; and some autonomous capability.

As Apple pushes forward, the company is finding it difficult to keep its automobile interest under wraps.

In May, Apple employees met with officials from GoMentum Station, a 5,000–acre former Navy weapons station east of San Francisco that is now a secure testing facility for autonomous and connected vehicles. In emails obtained through a public-records request, Apple expressed interest in scheduling time at the facility.

Then in August, an Apple lawyer met with officials from California’s Department of Motor Vehicles. In an email, the DMV said the meeting with Apple focused on “the autonomous-vehicle testing regulations that went into effect in September of 2014.”

Both meetings were earlier reported by The Guardian.

Updated profiles of recent Apple hires on LinkedIn, the professional social network, provide other hints. They include, for example, an engineer who specializes in automobile chassis.

i agree with tet ... i think apple nibbles at the edges for a little while. perhaps they get serious eventually, but its a whole new animal.

but if they do, they'll do it right, and i'll own an icar

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Much Respect(the other resident mac guy) [macbook air]"Good Funk, real funk is not played by four white guys from Vermont.. If anything, you could call what we're doing cow funk or something.."- Trey Anastasio

I also feel as though automobiles is one of those few remaining product categories where people actually care whose factory the thing comes out of. So it would have an Apple badge on the grille but come from some mystery plant overseas? There's more on the line with a car, and so the private-label route doesn't exactly inspire faith and confidence when you're driving around two tons of flammable death at highway speeds. And if the manufacturing partner was so reputable as to allay such concerns, then why would they subjugate themselves to the Apple brand just for a (relatively) limited run of cars they obviously know how to make and market themselves already?

I also feel as though automobiles is one of those few remaining product categories where people actually care whose factory the thing comes out of. So it would have an Apple badge on the grille but come from some mystery plant overseas? There's more on the line with a car, and so the private-label route doesn't exactly inspire faith and confidence when you're driving around two tons of flammable death at highway speeds. And if the manufacturing partner was so reputable as to allay such concerns, then why would they subjugate themselves to the Apple brand just for a (relatively) limited run of cars they obviously know how to make and market themselves already?

Speculation like this is somewhat laughable as any production from this project is likely many years away.

I also feel as though automobiles is one of those few remaining product categories where people actually care whose factory the thing comes out of. So it would have an Apple badge on the grille but come from some mystery plant overseas? There's more on the line with a car, and so the private-label route doesn't exactly inspire faith and confidence when you're driving around two tons of flammable death at highway speeds. And if the manufacturing partner was so reputable as to allay such concerns, then why would they subjugate themselves to the Apple brand just for a (relatively) limited run of cars they obviously know how to make and market themselves already?

Speculation like this is somewhat laughable as any production from this project is likely many years away.

What I find particularly laughable is the speculation about a 2019 target date as stated in the article. Unless, again, we're just taking about contract manufacturing, in which case see above.

Apple in talks with luxury carmaker McLareniPhone maker approaches British supercar group about automotive tie-up

Apple has approached McLaren Technology Group, the British supercar engineer and Formula One team owner, about a potential acquisition, in the clearest sign yet that the iPhone maker is seeking to transform the automotive industry.

The California technology group, which has been working on a self-driving electric vehicle for more than two years, is considering a full takeover of McLaren or a strategic investment, according to three people briefed on the negotiations who said talks started several months ago.

A tie-up with McLaren, whose expertise ranges from automotive engineering and on-board computer systems to novel chassis materials such as carbon fibre and aluminium, could accelerate Apple’s secretive automotive project. Apple and McLaren declined to comment.

The lossmaking automotive group was likely to be valued at between £1bn and £1.5bn, the people said, adding that it was not clear a deal would be done.

That would make it Apple’s biggest acquisition since the $3bn purchase of Beats Electronics, the audio group founded by Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine, in 2014.

Earlier this year, Apple invested $1bn in Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-hailing company. That deal was Apple’s largest equity investment to date, as chief executive Tim Cook gradually breaks with the Silicon Valley company’s longstanding aversion to large deals.

McLaren produces luxury sports cars that can cost as much as $1m apiece and owns an advanced technologies group, as well as the eponymous Formula One racing team. The owners of McLaren Technology control 80 per cent of McLaren Automotive. It produced 1,654 vehicles last year, generating revenues of £450m, and has pledged to invest £1bn in the next six years on research and development.

McLaren Technology reported revenues of £265m and pre-tax losses of £22.6m in 2014, its last published accounts. It is owned by Ron Dennis, its chairman, Mansour Ojjeh, and Mumtalakat, Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund.

Apple’s interest in the Woking-based company centres on its technology, engineering prowess and patent portfolio, according to people briefed on the talks. However, those people cautioned that it was unclear if a deal would go ahead following a recent shift in Apple’s car strategy.

Since 2014, Apple has built up a team of hundreds of engineers and designers to work on the electric car venture, including recruits from companies such as Tesla and Mercedes-Benz. Its original team leader, Steve Zadesky, left earlier this year, and Apple veteran Bob Mansfield took over the project.

In recent weeks, dozens of employees have departed, people familiar with the changes have said, as Mr Mansfield refocuses Apple’s efforts on the underlying systems that would power a self-driving car rather than building an electrical vehicle itself.

Despite recent reports of those changes, some Apple analysts have questioned whether the company would depart from its traditional strategy of controlling both the hardware and software in its products.

Some investors have hoped that Apple would make a move on Tesla, the Silicon Valley electric carmaker led by Elon Musk. At its annual meeting last year, Apple shareholders peppered Mr Cook with questions about whether he planned to acquire Tesla, which he carefully sidestepped.

Mr Cook has never publicly acknowledged Apple’s automotive project, but many of its top executives are car enthusiasts. Phil Schiller, Apple’s marketing chief, is said to own a McLaren, and Eddy Cue, its services head, sits on the board of Ferrari, while top designer Sir Jonathan Ive has expressed his fondness for Bentleys and Aston Martins.